Wednesday, December 08, 2010

"I want to make sure that a person I'm supporting is going to have my values. It's not anything about Jews and whether I think their religion is right or Muslims and whether I think their religion is right. ... I got into politics to put Christian conservatives into office. They're the people that do the best jobs over all."

Ah, I see. It's not "about Jews," it's just that Cook doesn't think Jews can do the job well because they're Jews

Here's a "feel good" news item about war criminal Dick Cheney being charged by Nigerian government for bribery to the tune of $180 Million.( Given the American hypocrisy and double standard though we can only speculate Dick Cheney will say neither Nigeria or Interpol have any jurisdiction over an American citizen especially when the person is the Ex Vice President of the USA. Will he claim executive privilege etc.

Meanwhile when it comes to Julian Assange of Wikileaks the Americans will claim that contrary to international law they do have jurisdiction to try Assange for sedition , treason as basically an online terrorists .)

The energy services company Dick Cheney ran prior to becoming Vice President of the United States was atop the tongue of liberals each time it was awarded a contract in Iraq.

Now the company's name, Halliburton, is being spoken somewhere else: Nigeria.

According to a story filed late Wednesday, Cheney will be indicted in a Nigerian bribery case as part of an investigation into an alleged $180 million bribery scandal.

"Last week, Nigeria arrested at least 23 officials from companies including Halliburton, Saipem, Technip and a former subsidiary of Panalpina Welttransport Holding AG in connection with alleged illegal payments to Nigerian officials. Those detained were all freed on bail on Nov. 29," Bloomberg News' Elisha Bala-Gbogbo wrote.

"Authorities in the West African nation are probing Halliburton, Saipem and Technip for the alleged payment of $180 million in bribes to win a $6 billion liquefied natural-gas contract," Bala-Gbogbo added. "Panalpina is being investigated for illegal payments it allegedly made to Nigerian customs officials on behalf of Royal Dutch Shell Plc."

The prosecuting counsel for the country's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission said that indictments will be handed down in the next three days and that an arrest warrant for Cheney "will be issued and transmitted through Interpol.

Online supporters of whistleblowing website Wikileaks are fighting back after news of Julian Assange’s arrest hit the wires.

Online activists known as “Anonymous” have initiated what they called Operation:Payback, a call to action to bring down the websites of companies that have publicly removed services once used by the Wikileaks website.

Anoymous has already targeted the Swiss bank PostFinance, a bank that froze all payments to the controversial website, after it promised to take down PayPal, the online payment company that cancelled Wikileaks’ account that it used to solicit donations.

Its current target? Mastercard. The website is currently down for a large number of users after a DDOS attack.

All of the groups actions have been publicly posted to the Anon_Operation Twitter account; the Paypal attack was posted to Twitter on December 6, declaring “target: www.paypal.com is YOYOing. Keep firing your lazors!”, the PostFinace attack was declared 17 hours ago and just minutes ago it was confirmed by the group that Mastercard had been taken offline as a result of its online assault.

Anonymous is a collection of online activists formed from popular online message boards, attacks are not for profit but are in most cases to demonstrate a show of force to promote unfair practises or highlight sensitive political issues. The three attacks here could just be the start of an uncomfortable few hours for the companies involved

Who knew that caving to government intimidation and the threat of bad p.r. could actually backfire? A group of anonymous online activists have knocked out the website of Post Finance, the Swiss bank that froze the assets of the Julian Assange Defense Fund. Operation Payback, which also launched an attack on PayPal this morning, pledged to go after any organization that "censors" WikiLeaks. (H/T Raw Story)

Raw Story found this video explaining their philosophy posted to their YouTube

Joe Lieberman, the chair of the Senate homeland security committee, told Fox News: "To me the New York Times has committed at least an act of, at best, bad citizenship, but whether they have committed a crime is a matter of discussion for the justice department."

Lieberman also said that the department of justice should indict Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, under the 1917 Espionage Act and try to extradite him from the UK.

Asked why this had not happened, Lieberman admitted there was probably an argument going on over how to charge Assange.

"I think this is the most serious violation of the Espionage Act in our history," Lieberman said, adding: "It sure looks to me that Assange and WikiLeaks have violated the Espionage Act."

At the daily state department briefing in Washington, DC, Philip Crowley, the department's press spokesman, said: "What WikiLeaks has done is a crime under US law.

Interpol has become just another police force obeying its masters-politicians., media moguls and the wealthy who insist Interpol and every nation around the globe should join with their anti-democratic attacks on Julian Assange. They and the elites they represent are more concerned or should we say threatened to their core by Julian Assange than they are bothered with capturing Osama Bin Laden . Bin Laden in fact did a great deal to push forward the elites policies. Because there is such a threat from terrorists as they claim they are able to sell any bit of anti-democratic policies eating away at American's rights and freedoms.Even in Wallmart the the little screen tells you "we're all in this together Be Alert report any unusual behaviors . And the American people accept all of this even those who should know better.

Here's unusual behavior a woman in her underwear in a wheel chair at an airport, children being pawed by complete strangers, screens revealing bone structure not so much it is a parade of naked people being treated as a criminal because you want to get from point A to point B.

Next it will be the trains, the buses the subways and more frequent road blocks, police able to stop a citizen and request their ID just like the former Soviet Union of course America is much further to the right.In the run of a day one might get asked multiple times or frisked , patted down. Then Americans might understand how Black people in their own country and of course in South Africa.Not long ago people like John McCain , Jesse Helms et al were acting as Lobbyist for South Africa over the interests of their own country champions and active cheerleaders for Apartheid South Africa which they saw as more perfect union than the United States . Most of the right wing and the GOP also vigorously defend Apartheid Israel.

Anyway the good news is that progressives in the US who disagree with the "favor the rich policy" ah the rich burdened with creating wealth for the sake of their nation not so much. They're just greedy. They tell us Greed is good but we don't see how. - Such a policy they tell us is just beyond our understanding. Yeah the rich get richer and the poor get poorer . Isn't it like a cult talking about the necessity of an elite who are superior to the rest of us. Without the super wealthy where would the rest of the citizens be .

Bernie Sanders isn't the only one who is in a fighting spirit after the recent "compromise" on the Bush Tax cuts.

Some progressives got so ticked off when they learned the Obama administration was going to cave on extending the Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthiest Americans that they got organized, picked up their phone, and proceeded to tangle up and shut down not one, but two White House phone lines.

Liz Goodwin at Yahoo's Lookout blog spoke to Erica Payne, a Demoratic strategist who helped organize the group of millionaires who asked Obama to raise their taxes:

Erica Payne tells The Lookout she emailed out the office number of Jarrett chief of staff Michael Strautmanis to an email list of about 10,000 progressive donors and groups Monday morning, urging those on the list to call and complain about a rumored--and since confirmed--compromise with Republicans that would allow all Bush tax cuts to remain in place for two years. She later blasted out Jarrett's own office number, after she said Strautmanis' had been shut down. That number was out of service for several hours but is now working again, she says.

Meanwhile, with objections from both sides both inside and outside congress, the deal Obama cut with Republicans faces a somewhat difficult road through the halls of power, writes Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly, who thinks eventually the unhappy compromise will "squeak by."

William Rivers Pitt says he has been patient with Obama far far too long now its time to take the gloves off. He is shocked at how easily Obama is defeated by the opposition.

Last week, I kicked President Obama squarely in the teeth for his decision to abdicate the economic argument to the GOP by wasting everyone's time with a freeze of Federal wages, his absurd apology for causing the noxious tenor that has defined the political conversation in America of late, his pathetic willingness to wave the white flag on the issue of Bush's rich-people tax cuts, and worst of all, the revelation that he and his people actively thwarted a genuine search for justice that is most sorely needed: the investigation into war crimes perpetrated by the Bush administration, initiated by the Spanish government before being derailed by the Obama administration.

In retrospect, I think I actually went soft on him and the people currently polluting the White House with their abject inability to get out of their own way. I make no apologies, and am now of a mind to spend the next two years in full attack mode - no quarter given, none expected - if they continue to behave the way they did last week....last month...and, yeah, this whole last year. Sure, the president and his crew can claim some moments of success here and there, but the overall picture being painted thus far is that of an administration hopelessly in over its head, bereft of direction and integrity, drowning like a bunch of toddlers who wandered into the deep end of the pool without their water wings.

Mr. Obama, for all his myriad faults and failures, does not deserve to shoulder the entire budget of blame, however. The entire Democratic Party, with a few notable exceptions (of late: Grayson, Franken, Feingold, the lost Mr. Wellstone, and Dean, to name a few), has been in the weeds since time almost out of mind.

and the bad news is America is still a bit anti-Semitic and aren't afraid to say so - they argue Jews are not truly committed to America becoming a purified Christian nation. The Serbian Orthodox Christians wanted to purify their nation to turn the clock back to some fantasy and so tens of thousands of Muslims needed to be kicked out or killed.This is just another indication of the religious rights attitudes and prejudices that in this case they do not like having Jews in positions of authority .

Ordinarily, who gets elected Speaker of the Texas state House would only be of interest to those in Texas. But the current dispute in Austin has a larger significance.

The current state House Speaker is Joe Straus, a conservative Republican leading a conservative Republican majority. He's currently facing a challenge from state Rep. Ken Paxton, who appears to agree with Straus on nearly everything.

So what makes this noteworthy? Straus is Jewish, and some far-right activists in Texas have a problem with that.

A few weeks ago, a coalition of Tea Party and right-wing Republican groups began lobbying for Paxton to replace Straus, with coalition activists circulating anti-Semitic emails. The message from conservatives was that the GOP state House needed a "Christian conservative" leader.

This week, the Texas Observer reported on an email exchange between two members of the State Republican Executive Committee, which governs state GOP affairs. One of the two party leaders, John Cook, insisted in a message, "We elected a house with Christian, conservative values. We now want a true Christian, conservative running it."

The Observer's Abby Rapoport connected with Cook to ask about his efforts to replace the current state House Speaker.

"When I got involved in politics, I told people I wanted to put Christian conservatives in leadership positions," he told me, explaining that he only supports Christian conservative candidates in Republican primary races.

"I want to make sure that a person I'm supporting is going to have my values. It's not anything about Jews and whether I think their religion is right or Muslims and whether I think their religion is right. ... I got into politics to put Christian conservatives into office. They're the people that do the best jobs over all."

Ah, I see. It's not "about Jews," it's just that Cook doesn't think Jews can do the job well because they're Jews